The present invention relates to a continuous processing apparatus, and more particularly, it relates to a continuous processing apparatus that has a specific section provided with labyrinth seal to retain pressure controlled conditions, so that sterilizing procedure and hot cooking procedure are sequentially carried out under pressurized or pressure reduced condition.
Technologies where pressure control procedure requires pressurizing include alunitization (sealing) on aluminum products, resin curing on reinforced plastic, polymer impregnated reinforcement manufacturing (Japanese Examined Patent Publication SHO58-18532), synthetic foam resin manufacturing (Japanese Examined Patent Publication SHO 60-55283), sterilization of medical equipment and food ingredients, and so forth.
An apparatus that carries out the pressurizing in a manner of batch processing is designed so as to perform sequential processing procedures under atmospheric pressure, pressurized condition for the purpose of sterilizing, pressure reduced condition, and atmospheric pressure regained condition in a single pressurizing and processing apparatus, and, it is disclosed, for example, in an official gazette of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication HEI 9-84567. Although the HEI 9-84567 discloses a pressure and heat sterilizing apparatus of a batch processing type, such an apparatus must be provided with a sterilizing room having a control mechanism to repeat procedures of pressurizing a processing chamber, processing raw/semi-processed materials, and reducing pressure in the processing chamber, and a tremendous cost of equipment investment is required to enhance throughput. There also arise problems that this requires larger-scale plant and equipment as well as more complicated control system. Moreover, even after solid food contained in retainers are sterilized, till the solid food is emptied out of the retainers into final product containers, the retainers are left standing by, and the sterilized solid food in those retainers may be contaminated with germs and viruses.
In such an apparatus that carries out pressurizing procedures continuously, a pressurizing apparatus must be led, in an upstream location therefrom, by a pressure regulation room to selectively adjust pressure from atmospheric pressure level up to pressurized level in order to carry materials to be processed in the tightly sealed pressurizing apparatus. Also, the pressurizing apparatus must be trailed, in a downstream location therefrom, by another pressure regulation room to selectively adjust pressure from pressurized level down to atmospheric pressure level in order to carry the processed materials out of the pressurizing apparatus. For instance, an official gazette of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication HEI 7-67595 discloses an apparatus that continuously sterilizes food ingredients contained in retainers. Specifically, in the disclosed design, a food ingredient supply unit, a linear tubular heater, a linear tubular cooler, and a dispensing unit are arranged in this order while the linear tubular heater and cooler have their respective inlets and outlets provided with dual tight seal gates or valves to sequentially open and close the gates, so that the unprocessed and processed materials are supplied to and ejected from the linear tubular heater and cooler, respectively, with the pressure kept unchanged.
In such an apparatus, each time the unprocessed and processed materials are carried in and out of the linear tubular heater and cooler, the dual tight seal gates must be alternately opened and closed, and thus, there arise problems of complicated operability and degraded durability of the apparatus.
A continuous rice steaming apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication SHO 52-64470, where pressurizing procedures are continuously carried out without providing tight seal gates. This apparatus has endless, continuous conveyer belt, and a plurality of continuous housings with partitioning panels located at constant intervals in a conveyer belt running direction and with side panels located along sides of the conveyer belt. Part of a running path of the conveyer belt passes through a steam heating chamber, and the steam heating chamber has an conveyer belt inlet and outlet where the partitioning panels serve as gates to define minute clearances.
The continuous rice steaming apparatus has its conveyer belt complicated in configuration to cause difficulty in washing it. The conveyer belt is required to be considerably long to result in the continuous rice steaming apparatus becoming larger in size, and additionally, the conveyer belt may be unavoidably flexed because of thermal expansion to cause difficulty in operation control and maintenance. Furthermore, a drive unit of the conveyer belt must be provided in the outside of the steam heating chamber, and thus, it is difficult to keep the continuous rice steaming apparatus sterilized. Moreover, since the housings are contiguous, materials, such as cooked rice, that have already been processed with pressure and heat in the housings are difficult to be emptied out of each of the housings into a final product container, and this results in applicable food materials being limited to some range.
On the other hand, technologies where pressure control procedure requires pressure-reducing include swelling chocolate manufacturing of a batch process type as disclosed in an official gazette of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication HEI 6-191515, and a pressure-reducing fryer that enables continuous processing as disclosed in an official gazette of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication HEI 6-7255. Such pressure reducing apparatus must also be provided with a sterilizing room having a control mechanism to repeat procedures of reducing pressure in a processing chamber, processing raw/semi-processed materials, and pressurizing in the processing chamber, and a tremendous cost of equipment investment is required to enhance throughput. There also arise problems that this requires larger-scale plant and equipment as well as more complicated control system.
In such an apparatus that carries out pressure-reducing procedures continuously, a pressure reducing apparatus must be led, in an upstream location therefrom, by a pressure regulation room to selectively adjust pressure from atmospheric pressure level down to pressure reduced level in order to carry raw/semi-processed materials in the pressure reducing apparatus. Also, the pressure reducing apparatus must be trailed, in a downstream location therefrom, by another pressure regulation room to selectively adjust pressure from pressure reduced level up to atmospheric pressure level in order to carry the processed materials out of the pressure reducing and processing apparatus. The above mentioned dual tight seal gates must also be alternately opened and closed, and this results in durability of the apparatus being degraded.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to overcome the disadvantages as stated above in the prior art pressurizing apparatus and pressure reducing apparatus, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a continuous processing apparatus in which a tubular assembly creates labyrinth seal to define a pressure controlled processing unit and to define inlet and outlet to keep pressure controlled in the unit while raw/semi-processed materials are being carried in and out therethrough, so as to considerably simplify an arrangement of a pressure processing apparatus, facilitate to sterilize the apparatus, retain the sterilized conditions well, omit pressurizing and pressure reducing procedures in carrying raw/semi-processed materials in and out of the processing apparatus, and quickly activate a subsequent procedure on the processed materials.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a continuous processing apparatus in which a pressure processing unit has a very small volume of idle space so as to reduce loss of steam and thermal energy required for processing for the purpose of energy saving, and so as to obtain even conditions of and stable controls over pressure and temperature.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a continuous processing apparatus in which the processed materials can be effectively and easily emptied into final product containers with extremely reduced residual materials, and a delivery route can be arbitrarily determined to down-size the apparatus.
In general, labyrinth seal is defined as seal that is created by an arrangement where a plurality of throttle pieces are provided to define narrow flow paths, and the narrow flow paths and large spaces are alternately located in a specified section to permit pressure therein to be enhanced or reduced stepwise, and to permit the specified section to substantially be shielded against pressure variation, and more specifically, it is defined as mechanism in which extremely narrow throttle flow paths are provided at intervals between the inner walls of a carry-in and carry-out paths in a pressure controlled processing room and a carrying unit of raw/semi-processed materials, so as to substantially prevent leak of fluid.
The present invention provides a continuous processing apparatus that comprises a tubular assembly having a carrying path of a constant spatial cross sectional area throughout it and a pressure control unit in the carrying path, a retainer that is provided with throttle pieces of an area slightly smaller than the spatial cross sectional area so as to create labyrinth seal at least one of the upstream and downstream locations from the pressure control unit of the tubular assembly along its carrying path, and a retainer carrying device placed in the tubular assembly for carrying the retainer.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described hereinafter.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that the tubular assembly has a pressure control unit trailed, in a downstream location therefrom, by a container supply unit which supplies a sterilized container to engage an opening of the sterilized container with an opening of the retainer. With such an arrangement, the processed materials that have been heated and sterilized can be emptied into the sterilized container without aids of shoot, for example, and thus, the prior art disadvantage that the residuals of the processed materials in the shoot may cause contamination with germs and viruses can be eliminated.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that the tubular assembly has the pressure control unit led, in an upstream location therefrom, by a preliminary heating unit. With such an arrangement, the raw/semi-processed materials can be quickly heated and sterilized so as to effectively prevent deterioration and deformation of the materials.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that the tubular assembly has the container supply unit trailed, in a downstream location therefrom, by a retainer/container turning unit that rolls over the retainer united with the container. With such an arrangement, the raw/semi-processed materials can be effectively emptied into the container without spill nor without deformation due to impact and shock.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that the retainer/container turning unit is trailed, in a downstream location therefrom, by a container dispensing unit, a sterilized top supply unit, and a top tight seal unit. With such an arrangement, the processed materials can be effectively prevented from being contaminated.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that the retainer/container turning unit has its downstream portion connected to an upstream portion of the tubular assembly via a retainer wash unit. With such an arrangement, the retainer can effectively be carried repeatedly and used efficiently. A preferred embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that the retainer carrying device utilizes magnetic force to carry the retainer. With such an arrangement, the interior of the tubular assembly and the retainer can be extremely simplified in their respective configuration, and hence, some procedure like washing can be carried out quickly and assuredly, and the apparatus can supremely effectively keep itself sterilized. Additionally, a required cost of plant and equipment can be effectively reduced.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that the retainer carrying device may utilizes carrying gears to carry the retainer within and through the tubular assembly. With such an arrangement, the retainer can effectively be carried assuredly with reduced carrying force.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that the tubular assembly is circularly shaped in cross section, and the throttle pieces are also circularly shaped in contour. With such a configuration, narrow clearances can be created evenly and extremely accurately between the tubular assembly and the throttle pieces, and the even clearances can be ensured even when the tubular assembly and the throttle pieces are thermally expanded, so as to ensure that the clearances effectively produce labyrinth seal effects.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention is characterized in that the tubular assembly has a plurality of steam supply nozzles. With such an arrangement, the tubular assembly can be divided into a plurality of subsections under varied heating conditions from one another, so as to carry out the heating stepwise depending upon types and natures of the materials to be processed.
Alternatively, the pressure control unit is led, in an upstream location therefrom, by a preliminary heat processing unit filled with steam ambience with the labyrinth seals intervening therebetween. With such an arrangement, steam leaked from the labyrinth seals can be effectively used to carry out some procedures like preliminary heating.
An alternative embodiment is characterized in that the pressure control unit is trailed, in a downstream location therefrom, by a steam atmosphere processing room with the labyrinth seals intervening therebetween. With such an arrangement, steam leaked from the labyrinth seals can be effectively used to carry out some procedures like sterilized packing.